In making this selection of twelve essays spanning the period 1953–77 for this 1980 volume, Professor Pickering bore in mind that many of his recent readers are not students of German, but of comparative literature, art, history or theology, and translated three of the twelve for the occasion. He grouped them according to their 'approach' and introduced each with reference to his other writings. The essays in the volume concern medieval ideas of fate, fortune and history, and the persuasive influence of the Consolation of Philosophy of Boethius. One essay in the selection invites further discussion of 'the Western image of Byzantium'. Of more exclusive interest to students of German are an essay on Goethe's use of emblem-book motifs and images in his idyll Alexis und Dora, and reflections on the academic study of German.